CATIA LA MAR (Venezuela), July 02 (AFP): Hundreds of rescuers struggled Thursday to unearth a 43-year-old Venezuelan man trapped for eight days under a collapsed building after twin earthquakes killed almost 2,300 people, an AFP reporter witnessed.
An international rescue team inched closer to Hernan Gil, a security guard buried inside his booth under the seven-story building where he worked in Catia La Mar, a coastal area almost entirely razed to the ground in the June 24 catastrophe.
"This is truly a miracle," Gil's wife Gusbimar Gonzalez told AFP.
"I'm completely amazed because it's the first time I've seen so many countries come together like this to save a single person," she said.
Rescue teams from seven countries-Venezuela, Chile, the United States, Portugal, Costa Rica, El Salvador, and Mexico-have been working around-the-clock over the past three days to reach him.
They were almost one meter (three feet) from his position overnight, rescuers told AFP, but working carefully to avoid the further collapse of nearby structures damaged in the quakes.
"This is a rather complicated structure to access," Cristian Vera, the leader of the Chilean rescue team told AFP. "It wasn't easy to reach the exact spot where the victim was located."
Though hopes rose for one man's rescue, Venezuela faces a disaster that has left many without shelter and desperately short on food. In addition to the dead, tens of thousands of people remain unaccounted for.
Venezuela's interim president Delcy Rodriguez declared seven days of mourning, saying the country's "soul is torn apart by the human losses."
